Is it racist...
when you make an assumption on the race/ethnicity of the person on the other side of the phone?
I visualize the people I talk to on the phone. Is it "bad" when I use a person's speech (typically accent and word choice) to determine race/ethnicity when picturing the person in my mind?
There was usually a slightly awkward moment while screening phone calls for the show when we were discussing race on the air. I am a firm believer in not repeating callers with the same point. I liked to always have one line still open if I could so that there was an opening for someone with a unique take on a subject. Invariably, there would come a call from someone who wanted to address the race issue and I KNEW from the voice it was a black person. If I had a black person on the phone, I wanted to let Darrell know. We hear enough from white folks, let's get a different take. Unfortunately, there were times where the person never identified themselves as black, but I knew that letting Darrell know he had a black person on the phone would get that call on the air faster. That moment of going, "So, um, are you black?" always made my skin crawl.
I visualize the people I talk to on the phone. Is it "bad" when I use a person's speech (typically accent and word choice) to determine race/ethnicity when picturing the person in my mind?
There was usually a slightly awkward moment while screening phone calls for the show when we were discussing race on the air. I am a firm believer in not repeating callers with the same point. I liked to always have one line still open if I could so that there was an opening for someone with a unique take on a subject. Invariably, there would come a call from someone who wanted to address the race issue and I KNEW from the voice it was a black person. If I had a black person on the phone, I wanted to let Darrell know. We hear enough from white folks, let's get a different take. Unfortunately, there were times where the person never identified themselves as black, but I knew that letting Darrell know he had a black person on the phone would get that call on the air faster. That moment of going, "So, um, are you black?" always made my skin crawl.